Did you try turning it off and on again?

We weren’t exactly surprised, per se, about the whole portal business. Mainly we wondered if the artist Benediktas Gylys hadn’t heard of that other great portal mankind built. Because if you knew about the internet, you had a fair idea what would happen with the portal.

The problem with building these grand acts of technology that will connect people around the world in real time, is contained in the description: “People.”

Benediktas probably knows a bit about people. He might even know that six months ago, near where the portal now stands, pesky people, the ghosts in the machine, rioted and burnt buses.

He may even be aware that 50 years ago, just down the road from the portal, people blew up other people in the name of their people, most likely with help from their government. That’s people for you.

So, of course, if you allowed people to connect, more or less anonymously, with people they don’t know, who are barely human to them, just images on a screen, you were going to get swastikas, the twin towers burning on 9/11 and a bit of nudity. Some people can’t help themselves.

Ironically, a spokesman for the Flatiron NoMad Partnership pointed out that the behaviour of this small minority was “amplified on social media”. It was almost meta (pun intended). The old portal — the internet — gave undue attention to the small amount of shenanigans at the new portal.

That’s another thing Benediktas may have been aware of — portals tend to accentuate the negative. Indeed, before the internet, many of us went through life blissfully unaware of the fact that there are more Nazis out there than you think, that there are lunatic conspiracy theories about everything and that there are lots of vicious, abusive people everywhere.

Before the miracle of global interconnectedness, cranks and Nazis and the kind of people who harass and abuse politicians, were on the fringe.

But now, thanks to all these portals, they get more attention than the vast majority of people who are, on balance, sound enough.

Just as one clown holding up a picture of the twin towers on 9/11 gets more attention than all the people who played rock, paper, scissors or danced or waved to New Yorkers on North Earl Street.

The democratisation of everyone’s voice is generally, of course, a good thing. But it does mean the national conversation can be hijacked by the same handful of people who picket politicians’ houses while their kids are being put to bed and abuse women out canvassing.

But then, Benediktas knew all this. He says the portal is “a representation of our current state of humanity… We see a lot of love, light, smiles… but we also have some darkness”.

The beauty of the portal is we were able to turn it off while we figure out the next move. Clearly, they asked the IT guy and he said: “Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?” Any chance, do you think, we could turn off the internet and take a breather while we figure out where we go from here?